Field of Invention
The present invention is generally related to the technical field of character input in image processing, more specifically to a character input method based on the optical character recognition technology; meanwhile, the invention also relates to a character input system; moreover, the invention relates to an electronic device with the character input system thereof.
Description of Related Arts
In recent years, along with the increasing popularization of electronic devices such as mobile phones, PDAs, handheld game consoles, navigators, etc., character input methods have become the most basic and common means for performing human-computer interaction.
Currently, there are two common character input methods. One is the keyboard input method in which a user utilizes a keyboard of an intelligent device to input a character through one or more keystrokes. For example, the blackberry mobile phone of the RIM Company adopts a keyboard for inputting characters (shown in FIG. 1). The method has the advantage that a user can use a thumb to carry out input operation by one hand and gets a specific feedback after each keystroke, and various language inputs can be realized through defining the combination of keys. Its disadvantage is that one character input needs many keystrokes, and a user needs to learn corresponding key combinations of characters, for example, inputting a Chinese character with pinyin; moreover, input mode needs to be switched when inputting different types of characters.
The other common input method is the touch screen input method, by which a user can input a character by clicking a virtual keyboard on the touch screen of an intelligent device, or directly writing a character on the touch screen with a touch-pen. As a result the handwriting is recognized and then converted into characters. The virtual keyboard input method has advantages and disadvantages similar to the keyboard input method. The advantage of the handwriting input is that a user just writes a character on the touch screen to realize character input without learning the key combination rules of characters. The disadvantages are, first the input speed is relatively low; second, the operation requires two hands, one hand holding the device, and the other hand holding a touch pen to write; third, recognition errors on scrawl handwriting further reduces the input speed; and fourth, inputting different types of characters requires switching input mode.
People often need to input text contents of books, magazines, advertisements and the like into an intelligent device in daily life, such as famous saying and epigrams, phone numbers, websites, email addresses, etc. FIG. 2 shows an example of a text image containing a text content. According to the prior art. It takes time to type text into an intelligent device character by character having to concentrate on the input and the text content back and forth. Therefore, there is a need for a fast character input technique on the intelligent devices.